What? is the What??

Dave Eggers made a bit splash years ago with the quirky, cheeky and weird A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius, the story of what happened next when Eggers' parents both died and he was left to care for his little brother. I was working in books retail at the time and this seemed to be the first of its kind, a post-modern but heartwrenching work of perhaps not staggering genius, but a kind of genius nonetheless. Lots of us didn't quite get it, and lots of us felt we ought to like it even though we didn't really and thought the diagrams were a bit much; nonetheless we supported this book and now we all know it went on to staggering sales and launched a career for Eggers in publishing and groundbreaking of all kinds.

The title should have been more of a tip-off than it was.

My first brush with Eggers the man was at the Horseshoe Tavern, a still-gritty bastion of what was arty Queen West in Toronto. It was an odd and perhaps courageous place to hold a book event, and maybe even tickets were sold. Unheard of. What ensued was not so much a reading as a performance, with Eggers, all adorable curls and pseudo-humility being the bratty smart ass and his friend (or a performer) riffing with him, dressed as a superhero, The Wolverine. Not much reading got done, or even talking -- it was more an SNL sketch than anything else and at the end, Eggers invited questions from the audience. Some brave souls obliged.

Eggers then "answered" with snide remarks and sarcasm, and most of us got the joke and resisted raising a hand. One man, though, persisted. He was older and stood up and asked a reasonable question. He asked Eggers how his family viewed the book, because in telling his own story he of course co-opted theirs, and what is this like, especially when one family member, the little brother, was so, well, little and thus possibly even more vulnerable than your average subject. Clearly this was a reasonable question asked by a man who not only had read the book but seemed genuinely curious about what the answer but be, and yet Eggers was relentless in his schtick. Made fun. Tossed off. The man persisted yet further, put the question another way, only to be shunted aside by The Wolverine and Bratty Dave. I hate to see book lovers mocked, ever, and certainly hate it when the mocker is the author himself. It was ugly.

I decided then never to buy another Eggers book, should there be one, and have never purchased McSweeneys or The Believer or any of his other apparently fabulous bits of publishing. I did almost bend the rule when I heard about his literacy organization in New York, where kids learn to love words and reading through their work at a superhero supply store (long story, but a good one).

However, I find myself unable to keep to my Eggers-free promise.

The NYT Book Review so raved about What is the What, it seemed we finally had a work of staggering genius (not the first time this lucky bastard will see THAT in print).

But that may not in itself have been enough.

However, I have had my heart broken and have been spinning inward and inward again, unable to lift my head some days. I wanted to read something about someone who had bigger problems than I do, just to take my mind off it.You will hear much more about What is the What from actual book critics who will tell you important things about this important book. It is a "novel" and an "autobiography" (this sliding around is typical po-mo and typical Eggers, no?) of one of the Lost Boys of the Sudan and it embarrasses me greatly to admit I was a reporter once, who covered actual news, and I knew nothing of this mass movement, this horrible bloodbath in the Sudan than left children enslaved, abandonned, or murdered, and I knew nothing of the tribe of young boys walking by foot to what they hoped would be the safety of Ethiopia. The carnage and evil is breathtaking, the everyday hardship, and the courage -- and luck -- of our hero profound.

The story thus far is told in a lilting, formal and yet poetic way. In a soulful way. In a way that is careful of language, trying not to say too much or overstate what surely must be tempting to embellish if only to satisfy a primal sense of rage over the atrocities children were forced to witness.

I am not yet finished this book. But yes, it is about someone whose problems are worse than mine. Who faced real carnage, not the casual betrayal I did. It has taken my mind off things. And turned it on to others.